


Just Hold My Hand

by QueenofSpadesLovely



Series: Tales From the Moby Dick [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28867740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenofSpadesLovely/pseuds/QueenofSpadesLovely
Summary: Ace goes MIA for a week and Azami goes looking for him. She finds more than the missing Commander, and the two share a quiet moment together.
Relationships: Portgas D. Ace & Original Character(s), Portgas D. Ace & Original Female Character(s), Portgas D. Ace & Original Male Character(s), Portgas D. Ace & Whitebeard Pirates, Whitebeard Pirates & Original Character(s)
Series: Tales From the Moby Dick [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117016
Kudos: 7





	Just Hold My Hand

**_Just Hold My Hand_ **

“He’s not here today _either_?” Azami said, a puzzled look on her brown face. Marco nodded, a nonchalant but slightly worried expression erasing his normally laid back smile and gaze. 

It was currently lunchtime on the Moby Dick, and most of the crew had gathered within the Galley to take a break from their duties and chores and spend time with the brothers and sisters. Since they’d managed to get a good haul in the form of shrimp, lobsters, fish and other marine critters through beautiful (not to mention _safe_ ) weather a couple days ago, Thatch and the rest of the Fourth Division chose to hold a seafood buffet for lunch today, much to the rest of the crew’s delight. So, now the Galley was filled to the brim with the smell of fried, sauteed, boiled, and baked dishes. As usual, it was loud and chaotic, with a food fight nearly breaking out -- until Marco swiftly put an end to it, reminding the perpetrators what happened the _last_ time they’d started slinging food. But despite that, the Whitebeard Pirates remained just as cheery as ever, which made the current conversation between the thief and First Division Commander all the more sobering.

Marco’s blue eyes crinkled at the edge as he watched the deep frown bloom on the Witch’s face. “Then where is he so I can drag his butt to-”

“You should probably leave him alone today, Azami.” Deuce piped in, a plate in hand as he was walking past. The Witch raised an eyebrow, expecting an explanation, but he only shrugged in response. “It’s just one of those days he needs to be left alone.”

“Portgas? Left alone?” Azami snorted, as if the two ideas couldn’t co-exist together. “I know I haven’t been on the ship long but I’ve been around long enough to know something’s up when that Flame-Broiled Idiot wants to be ‘alone’. So what aren’t you telling me, Masked Deuce?”

Deuce wouldn’t answer, only turning and leaving to eat his lunch. Azami huffed, turning back to Marco. “Do _you_ know what’s up with Portgas?”

“It’s not my place to say.” Marco answered, turning back to his plate. A sigh escaped from Azami’s lips as she crossed her arms, a dejected -- but heavily concerned -- look crossing her eyes. “I’d take Deuce’s advice up and just leave him be. You can bother him later.”

“I don’t understand… This isn’t like Ace…” the silver-haired girl muttered, growing more concerned as she stared off into the boisterous crowd. She fiddled with her dark fingers anxiously as her green eyes drifted towards the door. “He promised me last week he’d help me get better at making potions -- he even volunteered to try them when I was done…!”

“Hey -- don’t worry too much,” Marco said softly, closing his eyes as he leaned back in his chair slightly. “This is _Ace_ we’re talking about; he’ll pop back up good as new in no time!”

Azami, however, didn't respond to Marco's attempts to reassure her -- she still stared at the door, as if she were trying to will the missing Commander to walk through and assure her himself that all was well.

Thatch, who’d been present the entire time, frowned at Marco’s statement, but didn’t say anything in front of him. Instead, he motioned for the Witch to follow him into the kitchen. 

“I know Marco said we should probably leave Ace alone but…” Thatch chewed his lip as he moved from pot to pan, a plate in his hand. “He hasn’t been eating properly for the past week. And he’s barely left his room. This isn’t the first time this has happened -- but Ace usually comes out after a day or two has passed. He hasn’t been in this low of a mood in a long time. I’m worried, but I don’t know how he’d feel about us entering his room when he gets like this. You know how he can be -- he doesn’t want to appear weak, but...”

“But you want me to do the test run and see how he is?” Azami asked, a small smile crossing her face. “That’s very clever of you, Thatch. Was it my lack of care for his boundaries or the fact that I’d storm his room without knowing that made you tell me?”

“Both, if I’m being honest. Take this plate. He might eat, he might not.” Thatch sighed, chewing on his thumbnail and leaned against the counter. “Just make sure our ball of sunshine doesn’t die out, will you?”

“I’ll do my best.” Azami nodded, taking the plate into her hands. 

In a flash of light, she was moved from the kitchen to the hallway outside of the Second Division’s rooms. There were a few people milling about, but since it was lunchtime, most were off completing chores or finishing duties, while the rest were eating in the Galley. Azami sucked in a deep breath, before approaching Ace’s door. Soul Sense told her he was definitely in there, but his health was not looking great. Quickly, she rapped her knuckles on the door, balancing the plate of food in her right hand.

“Yo, Portgas. It’s been a while; are you still alive?” she joked. 

There was no response (as she suspected), so she continued on. 

“Thatch sent me, I’ve got a plate from lunch for you -- it's Seafood Day.” 

Still no response. 

“Well, I’m not taking this all the way back to the kitchen -- besides, someone might eat it before I get there.”

Nothing.

“I’m coming in, whether you want me to or not.”

Silence on the other side. 

Azami shrugged, reaching for the doorknob and jiggled it -- locked. A short laugh escaped her mouth quietly, and she raised her voice to speak to him again.

“Locked, huh? Well, I’m familiar with locked doors, so something like this _isn’t going to stop me_.”

With another bright flash, she left the hallway and landed in his room, right in front of his door. Her concern rose higher as her green eyes assessed the state of the Division Commander’s room. She’d been in Ace’s room (both with and without his permission) enough times to know the state he normally kept it in. He wasn’t like Thatch, who meticulously kept everything organized and in a specific order and place -- and he wasn’t like Marco, who despite the endless amounts of paperwork he received, still managed to keep his room spotless. Ace had a sort of chaotic order when it came to his sleeping quarters; it was messy, to an extent, but with a distinct pattern that made finding certain things easier. Shoes and clothes went into the closet, paperwork _always_ stayed on the desk, knickknacks and memorabilia were piled onto the dresser in rows based on the date it was received, and his hat hung on the bedpost above his pillow.

However, it seemed like that system had been thrown out the porthole and into the ocean. His shoes and clothes were all over the floor, along with scattered paperwork. It looked as though he’d knocked a pile or two down and didn’t bother to pick it up, instead letting it fall wherever. His signature orange hat lay upside down on the floor, by Azami’s foot. The porthole had been covered with a dark and heavy blanket, which blocked out most of the light that would’ve normally seeped in. The knickknacks were scattered around the dresser, some tilted onto their sides and others had fallen off completely, landing in the piles of papers and clothes. The silver-haired Witch even recognized one she’d jokingly gotten for him in his left boot. She had no idea he’d kept it, despite her constant breaking into his room. And that wasn’t the only thing to surprise her, as she spotted the Division Commander tightly wrapped in a pile of blankets, his brown eyes closed. Ace rarely slept with a blanket -- his Devil Fruit often kept him warm enough where he slept with just the bare mattress; seeing him tightly cocooned now, as if he were too cold to just sleep without it, made the Witch’s worry heighten even more. And from where she was standing, she could see the dark circles sitting underneath his closed eyes and frowned, wondering just how much he’d put himself through this week.

“Jeez, Ace; this _really_ isn’t like you,” she muttered to the sleeping boy. Quietly, she set the plate of food down on the desk and waved her hand over it, casting a self-heating spell to keep it warm and fresh.

She supposed she could leave, tell Thatch what she saw, and let him and the rest of the Commanders decide what to do; but looking around the room once more… she felt a funny sense of deja vu, that reminded her of her brother…

No, she couldn’t just leave him like this; she would die from worrying all day and night about that Pyromaniac. But what could she do? She didn’t want to wake him, in the off-chance that he was actually sleeping peacefully… What did she used to do when her brother got like this?

“Ah, that’s right… I’ll start with cleaning this room.” with a flick of her wrist, she called for a medium-sized staff, with a yellow handle. The head was of a red and orange gem, in the shape of a star, while a thin white ribbon trailed from the base.

Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, the Witch held the staff in a vertical position in front of her. Underneath, a glowing magic circle appeared, its soft purple light illuminating the dim room. The scattered messes began glowing with the same colored lights, and slowly began to reorganize. The memorabilia lined up on the dresser in its original order; the papers and clothes either went into the closet or on the desk, neatly folded and neatly stacked; his shoes quietly tapped and danced to the edge of his bed, sitting neatly next to each other. Finally, the glowing lights dimmed down, and Azami opened her eyes, sending the staff back. She located a lantern she knew Ace kept on the desk for emergencies, and lit the wick with a snap of her fingers.

“You’re a lot of work, huh, Commander Campfire?” Azami quietly joked as she sat on the floor next to his sleeping form, out of breath and drained from the magic she’d cast. “Here I am, spending my afternoon looking after you -- though I have to admit, I’d probably have ended up here anyway. I guess I can wait until you wake up...”

Her body suddenly shivered, and she realized that it was colder than she expected in Ace’s room -- the tank top, vest, and shorts she wore didn’t help keep any warmth. Next to her, the sleeping boy shifted, and one of his hands poked out from the mountain of blankets. Curiously, she reached towards it, wrapping her fingers around his. It was just as warm as she expected of him, if not warmer -- so he wasn’t sleeping under the covers because he was cold, like she originally thought. Then why…?

“Ah, whatever.” she shook her head, tightening the grip her hand had on his. He didn’t seem to notice, and she wasn’t going to move. Though she was cold, the area around the bed was much, much warmer -- it reminded her of a campfire. “You know, I never told you why I call you ‘Commander Campfire’ so much.”

“It’s not just because of your Devil Fruit, mind you -- though that’s a small part of it.” the warmth must have been getting to her, as she sat her head back and closed her eyes, the words tumbling out of her mouth with no restraint. 

“It’s because that’s what you reminded me of, the first night I stayed on the Moby Dick. You believed in me, all the way back then. And it was so… _soft_ , so warm, that the first thing that came to mind was a campfire -- this… dim light in the middle of darkness. Even on my worst days, you were there -- like a spark of warmth, to make me feel _something_ other than numb, _empty_. So imagine what it was like seeing you with the others -- you weren’t just a campfire then, you’d become the _sun_. You always tell us how your brother was a ball of sunshine that brought you out of the darkness, but… I don’t think you give yourself any credit, Ace.”

Here, she shifted, turning around so that she could lay her head on the space between Ace’s body and the edge of the bed. She still kept her hand in his, letting her arm stretch out underneath her head with her other arm.

“Just like Luffy saved you, _you_ saved others. _You’re_ the ball of sunshine that brought others out of the darkness. Your affection, your loyalty, your friendship, your _love_... All of that saved them -- saved _us_. And I can see it in their eyes. The Old Man, Marco and Thatch, and Jozu and Izou and Haruta; Deuce and the 2nd Division; Sam, Elena, Chizuru, Allen, and Akimi… Even myself. Your sunlight reached us in some way or another, and we wouldn’t be the same without it. So…”

Her eyes started to slowly close as she let out a yawn, the warmth pulling her to the edges of sleep. However, she still mumbled to the sleeping boy out of sheer drowsiness.

“Don’t ever doubt that you’re worth it, Ace -- because you _are_. And there’s a lot of us who believe it.”

By this point, she’d drifted off, her breaths evening out as she slipped into unconsciousness.

What she wouldn’t realize, however, was the hand that gripped hers firmly, and a small smile on the sleeping boy.

Much later, the freckled boy began to stir, his throat dry from sleeping with his mouth open. He recognized his room was dimmed, and remembered some time ago he’d put a blanket up to the porthole to block out the sun. He didn’t know how much time had passed since he decided to take his 4th nap that day, but he also didn’t care much. Hopefully, it was night time, so he could simply go to the bathroom with few people to bother him and retreat back to his room and the covers. He started to sit up slightly, before he noticed a few things.

First, his room was clean -- everything was perfectly arranged like he normally would have it.

Second, the scent of food lingered in the air -- _fresh_ food, not whatever week old scraps he scrounged up to avoid eating in the Galley.

And third, someone was holding his hand, _tightly_.

Slowly, he glanced to where his left hand was, and saw a dark brown hand latched to it. He followed the arm to a head of silver hair, and for a moment, his mind blanked. Azami…? Had she come to check on him? Normally, the flame user would be irked at her lack of care for his boundaries, but… Knowing she had come to bring him food (probably at Thatch’s request), and then cleaned his room and stayed by his side had warmed him, pushing away the numbness that sank its claws into him the past week. And from there, he thought of all the things his brothers and sisters had always done for him, making him feel grateful once more that he’d managed to find somewhere to belong.

A noise down at the end of the bed brought him out of his thoughts, and he saw Azami sit up, wiping at her eyes with her other hand. She turned her green eyes up to Ace, only to stare right into his brown ones. She was silent for a moment, before realizing she was still holding his hand. Quickly, she snatched it away, breaking eye contact with him.

“Sorry… I didn’t realize it was cold in here, so I grabbed your hand to warm up a bit,” she quietly spoke, keeping her head turned. Ace looked closer, and realized she was shivering -- meaning she was still cold.

With one swift movement, he grabbed one of his blankets, then draped it over Azami. She gave the Division Commander a quizzical stare, pulling the still-warm (and weighted) blanket around her as he flipped to a more comfortable position on his back. He didn’t look at her as he held his hand out from under the covers.

“Ace…? What-”

“Just hold my hand.”

Azami stayed silent for a moment, before a smile slowly bloomed across her face. She grasped his hand and laid her head back on the bed, enjoying the newfound warmth; before long, she’d fallen asleep once more. Ace, however, stayed up for a few moments, reveling in the warmth Azami’s hand gave off. An appreciative smile worked its way across his lips as he closed his eyes, tightening his hold slightly.

He wouldn’t tell Azami ever, but he’d heard what she said earlier. He’d woken up the moment she sat next to him and held his hand and was going to tell her off, _but_... she gave him something much more precious in that moment. He’d fallen asleep only a moment after she did, riding the high that her rambling had given him, and had forgotten she was in there. Now, however, he was grateful for it.

_Yeah… I’m super lucky to have them._

At dawn, while Commander and Witch were deep into sleep, two visitors came to the room. Quietly, the door was opened, letting in the dim light of the hallway.

“I still think we should let him be. There’s no telling what his mood is like--”

“Shh! I sent Azami to check on him and she never came back, not even for dinner or _dessert_! You know she'd _never_ pass up dessert!”

“Maybe she realized she shouldn’t bother him and did something else. Give the girl credit, Thatch; if she sees something that shouldn’t be messed with, she’s not gonna--”

“Wait, Marco look…!”

The 1st Division Commander turned to where his brother was pointing, and saw the Missing Witch and their Missing Hot-head. A warm smile slowly bloomed on his face as he saw the linked hands, and he felt relief wash over the worry that had been eating at him. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t going to storm the Second Division Commander’s room after a week had passed; but this had happened before, and Ace always bounced back from it, so he turned his eye away and prayed for the best. Thatch hadn’t been convinced, which is how he managed to persuade the Phoenix into coming to Ace’s room this early anyway.

Now, he was certain Ace would be fine.

“Marco, where’s my camera?” Thatch mischievously whispered, rubbing his hands together. “Oh, this is _good_ blackmail material-- hey!”

“Just leave them be, Thatch. Don’t ruin a good moment.” Marco hummed in amusement as he dragged the quietly protesting chef out of the room. He shut the door softly, then whistled as he pulled Thatch towards the kitchen and Galley.

And, like he predicted, once breakfast rolled around, their fiery little Ball of Sun had returned, kicking the double doors down and loudly proclaiming he was “allowed to live another day, so he’d make it everyone’s problem.” That soon ended as he was shoved out of the way by Elena, who called him an idiot for blocking the door and stopping her from getting her morning donuts. That, of course, resulted in Ace trying to steal all the donuts, which led to a brawl between the Head Mechanic and the Commander, that dragged other crewmates into the fiasco -- including the silver-haired Witch, who was angered by her overly-sugared and diabetes-inducing tower of pancakes being knocked down.

Yeah, Ace was definitely back, and the Whitebeard Pirates wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
